ASSIGNMENT 1 - Counting People want to buy an Xbox

Open a new worksheet in Excel to start Project

Typing text in cells

Click in A1 and type the word "Week"
Right button click in the cell and “center” the words Week

Click in B1 and type the words "ppl want an xbox"
Right button click in the cell and chose the font “ARIAL NARROW” so the words fit
- drag the box wider

Click in C1 and type the words "Total number of xbox available in the stores"
(or no. of xbox available)
Right button click in the cell and chose the font “ARIAL NARROW” so the words fit

you can also Double click line between column B and C to autofit words typed (page 113)
- what this does is make the cell wider so the letters fit
- or you can put your mouse on the vertical line and drag the line wider

Making Backgrounds in cells
 

Selecting Cells (page 3)
Click in Cell A1, hold the shift key, and click in Cell C1 (to select the cell range A1:C1)

Change the background fill colour to a dark colour
(this now means the words can't be seen)

To change the background colour in a cell, right button click in the cell and you'll see this small menu

click where it says "format cells"

and this larger menu will show up
- click where it saws "patterns"

and this part of the menu will show

you can then click on any colour you want, and that will then be the background of the cell

So after you change the background of the cell to a dark colour, you'll notice the black words don't show up so easily.
Now you have to change the black font of the words, to a lighter colour

To do this,  go to the tool bar at the top of the sheet and set the letter colour
And change it to a lighter colour

 

Typing text in cells - Part Two

When you type content into cells, you have choices
- you could do alpha letters, like a,b,c, or numbers 1,2,3 or currency $4.23 , dates, etc.
- there are several options
- see the screen captures below

1st - there is the "general" option

2nd - you have numbers, and you have options as to how the numbers appear
- they can be with decimal places, or without decimals
- just click around and you can see the different arrangements

3rd - you can type in currency
- you can have two decimal places like Cdn dollars, $4.45
- or if you are dealing in large numbers like $5,000,000 you can take the decimal out
- you can also change the symbol from dollars, to euros or yen
- just click around and you can see the different choices

 

Formatting cells for different content

Format the cells to set the number format (page 186)
Click in Cell A2
Hold down the left button on the mouse and drag down to cell C10
- this makes the whole area change colour
- when you let go of the mouse the area should still be that alternate colour
- then "right button click" the mouse and you'll get the main menu

then click on format cells
and go to "number"

Look to the right to find "Decimal places"
Click the up or down arrow to set to "0"
Click "OK"

So now the cells are formatted
- now go back to the main screen
In Cell A2 type the number 0
In Cell A3 type the number 1
In Cell A4 type the number 2

Extend the number series, downwards, to cover 8 weeks.
To do this, carefully drag the mouse down so it is in the bottom right hand corner of the cell
It will then change from an arrow to a cross
to 

Once it shows as a black cross you can then drag down, and all the cells will extend the value continuously

For example if you started dragging 1,2,3,  - it will continue 4,5,6
- if you started 2,4,6 - it will continue 8, 10, 12 etc
- it also works for words, you can type xbox1, xbox2, xbox3 - it will continue xbox 4, xbox 5....

You should end up with something that looks like this

 

People who got Xboxes

In week 1, one person has gone to the store and stole an xbox and took it home and his kids loved him
Microsoft realized they had to make some more so and make more available to the stores
So in week 2, at the store in Malvern, Microsoft shipped in 5, but 10 people lined up to get them
In week 3, Microsoft shipped in 10, but 20 people lined up

So the question is, by week 8, how many people will be lining up for an Xbox?
If Microsoft was eventually able to gear up their production to satisfy the huge demand, at what future point in time would they have to be able to come up with, say, 1000 xboxs
- this is an example of a "real" use of spreadsheet calculations
 

First, keep in mind that Microsoft is increasing the number shipped by 5 each week
- so what we want to do is drag down the "no. of available" line to the 8th week
- put your mouse in box C4, hold down and drag to C5
- then let go
- it should look like this

then move the mouse over the lower right hand corner of box C5 til you get a black cross show up

then if you "left button" click and hold down, and drag down, the cells will fill in
15, 20, 25 etc....
so you will get this

Now we have to figure out the number of people in B6, B7, B8 etc.
- if you know that the number of people in B6, B7, B8 etc. is 2X the number in cell C6, C7 etc., we can make a formula and automatically calculate this

Calculating formulas

put the mouse in B6 and mark the box, like below

secondly, move your mouse up to the formula bar, click in there
- the cursor will start to blink in this little box and you can type in there
- you want to know 2X what is in the cell C6, so in cell B6 you type "=C6*2"

- using the "=" indicates a formula
- using the "*" indicates it is multiplication
- so you type in "=C6*2" in B6, and then press ENTER
- and the result will automatically show as 30
- see below

if you want to know the values in B7 and B8 etc., you just "left button" click in cell B6
- move the cursor to the lower right hand corner to get the "+" sign
- then hold down and drag down
- you'll get results like the screen capture below

Graphing

Now that we have the "numerical results", we want to graph them so we can take it to a meeting and show the Xbox production team what the problem is.

We'll start by locating the icon for making charts, it's called the "Chart Wizard"

For making a simple chart
First, before clicking on the Chart Wizard, you have to identify the data you want charted
You do this by taking the mouse and dragging it down the columns you want

then after the boxes are marked you click on the Chart Wizard and open it up
- it will automatically indicate "column" charts, but you can toggle down and select others

For this exercise I want you to select the "Line" chart

If you then click on the "Next" button, it will show you a sample of what the chart will look like

Clicking "Next" again will give you options for putting in the Title and name the axis
- I want you to do this

like this

 

clicking "Next" again will allow you the options to place the chart in the main page you see, or on a new sheet

So here is the final result

Keep in mind while the corners of the box show as little black squares, you can drag and move the whole chart in different places on the page

Finally, what I want you to do is
1. change the lines to different colours
2. change the little boxes on the lines to big dots,
3. make the dots a different colour than the line
4. lastly, change the background of the chart to be an image of an xbox

Print this out
And hand it in at the beginning of class next week, Jan 19th

(remember, "right button" click is your friend)

have a nice week ;-)

WTGR
 
 
 
 
 
 

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